Rikke looked at him baffled. “When I count something against you, you want to disagree. When I count something for you, you want to disagree with that, too.”

“In my experience… things are rarely all one way or the other.”

“You’re right there,” said Rikke, sitting back. “And you did let me go, that day in the woods.”

“That’s one good deed I’ll fully confess to,” admitted Clover.

“A man who does good, you can predict. A man who does bad, the same. But what do you do with a man who can’t make up his mind?”

“I’ve often wondered.”

“I like you. But I can’t have you around. Shivers?”

Clover shut his eyes then, expecting the sword in the back of his head. Like Black Dow. Like Black Calder. But when he gathered the courage to squint around, he saw Shivers was offering him a bag. He took it and looked inside. The gleam of silver, and a decent amount, by all appearances.

“That’s… more’n generous,” he said. “If I was you I wouldn’t have me around, either. Hell, I’m me, and I often tire of my company.” He put his hand on Sholla’s shoulder and drew her forwards. “But if you’ll entertain me with a brief hearing, I’d like to recommend this article. Her name’s Sholla, and I’ve never yet had cause to doubt her loyalty. A fine hand with an arrow, the softest footstep I never heard and an undisputed master at the noble art of cheese-shaving. She can get ’em like a sheet of paper. I swear you can see through the bastards.”

Rikke raised the brow over her blind eye at Sholla. “If I’ve one regret it’s that my cheese never quite carves thin enough.”

“And then there’s this, which is called Flick. I have yet to discover any talents but I’ve no doubt there’s one lurking beneath the unpromising exterior, and even if there ain’t he has a pleasant manner, which is too rare a thing in the North, I think you’ll agree.”

Rikke glanced about her closest. Caul Shivers. Isern-i-Phail. She puffed out her cheeks. “Well, I won’t disagree.”

“Good. Good.” Clover gave Flick’s shoulder a parting squeeze, then let his hand fall. He gave the room a smile. “Watch yourself, in Adua. I hear folk down there can’t all be trusted the way they can up here.”

Rikke gave a snort. “Fine advice.”

“And if anyone should want to learn sword-work, I am available.” And with a gesture caught on awkward ground between a nod and a bow, Clover took his leave.

“Don’t we get a say?” muttered Sholla, following him out with Flick. The sun was getting low now, and the yard was half in bright light, half in deep shadow. Rarely all one way or the other, like he’d told Rikke.

“I’m sparing you the pain of it,” said Clover. “You’re both better off here, and I know it, and you know it, and once you thought about it you’d see you had to tell me so, and it’d be an awkward scene all around. Afford me the dignity o’ this one last call as chief on your behalf.” He gathered ’em in an awkward hug. Mostly so he didn’t have to listen to ’em argue with him. “Thanks for your support through hard times. And thanks especially for that arrow in Downside’s shoulder.”